Celebrim said:
What can I say. You liked it. I didn't. You continue to accuse me of doing and thinking things I don't do and think. If I were adapting the movie, you can bet I would have done alot of changes too. The notion that I think somehow you can shrink 1000+ pages of prose into under 500 pages of script without making alot of changes is ridiculous.
I will say this just once, as I think it is the only time it needs to be said. Each time you complain, you really should answer all of the following questions - you only answer the first and sometimes the second. Keep in mind your three-hour time-limit on the movie (whether you as a director want more time, you can be darned sure that the studios were adamant about the three-hour limit and since its their money you're playing with, you have to play by their rules).
What changes did you dislike? Why? How would you have handled it instead? What would you have changed that was left alone?
As an example: I would have cut from the movie the trip to Osgiliath in favor of a more faithful portrayal of Faramir (read: one who was wise like Gandalf and did not give in to the temptation of the ring). I would have cut Legolas' skateboard scene (as over-the-top silliness). I would have cut the Elves from Helm's Deep. With the fifteen minutes-ish thusly freed up, I would have added more to the Merry/Pippin/Orcs and Ents thread to show Pippin and Merry deceiving Grishnakh, show them drinking the Entwash, and having the Ents decide to attack Saruman without being tricked. I would have also shown a little more of the Ent battle at Isengard, specifically the ents "freezing their roots onto stones and tearing them off like crusts of bread, their roots doing the work of centuries in just seconds."
There are two types of criticisms: constructive criticism and whiny criticism. People take it as whiny criticism if it is mostly "this sucks" or "they blew it on this" and not "it would be better if they did <blah blah blah> instead." In other words, if you can't offer a better explanation - a specific one, not the ephemeral "they could have done better" but "<blah> would have been a better way to do it" don't expect most people to take your criticism as the constructive type.
Do you think I know nothing about the craft of writing?
Nonetheless, since I cannot prove to you it can be done better, and since it will be a good 15-20 years before any dares to follow this thing up with there own interpretation, I guess I have no way of convincing anyone that PJ made a cheap version of the LotR.
Sure you can. Provide concrete examples of HOW it could have been done better. Don't say, "it could have been" say, "THIS IS HOW it could have been."
I for myself would not call PJ's version of LotR cheap - monetarily or intellectually. But that has already been covered in more detail already by others.
Did he blow it? Well, in one since no, because there are sure to be lots of people (you folks) who love the movie. That is certainly a fine measure of success. And, certainly he will recieve many accollades from the critics and his peers. More power too him.
This sounds rather condescending to me - as was said before, "so in other words, nobody but you really knows how to do it right?"
I am forced to echo Psion's sentiments toward DocMorriarty - when Morriarty was complaining that (in his estimation) Monte Cook's "fanboys" gave RttToEE a lot of positive reviews, thus artificially improving it's rating, Psion's retort, was, IIRC, to the effect of "they're stupid fanboys that disagree with you thus they are artifically upping a rating, and thus their opinions shouldn't count - as opposed to you, who, on the other hand have the only correct and reasonable opinion."
From your comments, Celebrim, I have to echo a similar sentiment... your attitude connotes that you feel that the "unwashed, ignorant masses'" high opinion of a movie is unwarranted - because of course you have the only correct and reasonable opinion. Pardon me if I have a hard time seeing your side. But enough of the ad hominim attacks.
Did I think TTT was perfect? No. Did I think it was as good as LotR? No. And I have said as much. Did I think it was a good movie that was reasonably (not completely as that is an impossibility given the current forces in Hollywood) faithful adaptation of TTT? Yes.
LotR got an A+ from me. The Extended Edition was even better. TTT gets a B+ from me. Who knows, TTT-E may warrant an A+. In any case, I want to see RotK before I make my final, binding judgments.
There was a time when Hollywood thought it ridiculous to hire experts in history and art as consultants for making movies. Who would care? Who is going to notice. What would be the point? Compare the costumes and weapons of say Ben Hur, to those of say Gladiator or indeed PJ's LotR? Which would you rather have? There was a time when the lavish detail in props and the attention to detail that we have come to accept as ordinary and essential was scoffed at. If I had suggested we do what is done now 30 years ago I would have been told I didn't know a thing about making movies. Then along came Star Wars and Hollywood was convinsed otherwise. It apparantly takes such things.
And herein lies the observation that you yourself have made that wipes your argument out. This makes it appear that you are not pissed off bad movie by today's standards - you seem to imply that it is in fact a very good movie by today's standards - but you are instead pissed off because TTT - specifically, Peter Jackson - did not do enough to change the perceptions of modern movie making. You aren't pissed because it's good with regard to what it had to work with but you're pissed because you wish PJ had fought to get more to work with? With apologies to Eric's Grandmother, what the heck kind of assinine complaint is that?!?!? This is, for lack of a better term, an assault on a movie that "gamed well" because it didn't "metagame" well enough for your tastes.
If FotR had been a runaway success and Jackson was *then* authorized to make the other two movies, he could have dictated terms. The best analog I can think of to this is Myst. The original Myst had to be made according to certain terms because it wasn't a proven formula. Certain compromises on the part of the authors had to be made in order to get the funding necessary. When it turned into a breakaway hit, the authors could do Riven (Myst II) however the heck they wanted - because they had the proven track record (and the royalties pouring in) to get away with it.
If Peter Jackson were just now starting to shoot RotK, I could expect him to "metagame" the movie industry a bit. But he's not. For all intents and purposes, it is done. For all intents and purposes, TTT and RotK were both done over a year ago. Jackson has no ability to "metagame" with TTT and RotK because they're already finished! It's the "price" he had to pay to get a guarantee that all three would be finished (to avoid another Bakshi catastrophe where the movie was literally only half-completed due to lack of funding).
That said, I fully expect whomever does the Hobbit or the Silmarillion to metagame the system for all it's worth.
Today, talk to any screenwriter (and I've talked to several), and you will find that the working ones are pretty much convinsed that when adapting a work to the screen, the last thing you want to do is be faithful. It is artistic suicide in Hollywood to so much as suggest that you aren't going to put your own spin on the book, you are going to faithfully render the authors vision on the screen. You would be laughed at. You'd probably never work again. I seriously doubt anyone with the humility to make such a suggestion exists in the dog eat dog world of Hollywood. For this reason and others, generally adaptations of great works are disappointments or else are dismissed as unfilmable.
Gads, I'm glad Tolkien's original vision wasn't put on the screen. Of all movie genre's Tolkien's original vision was clearly not "action" or "mythic" but "musical" - and with some pretty crappy lyrics, I'm afraid.
Seriously, though, this just increases my suspicions that you're not upset at the "game" TTT exhibits, but rather its lack of metagaming.
It is amazing that Peter Jackson managed to sell this project DESPITE the fact that any outsider could have told them that all they had to do was be remotely faithful and they had a billion dollar franchise on there hands.
Just like Ralph Bakshi's work, eh? It was pretty faithful, as a matter of fact. Problem is, it was hideously done. Execution DOES matter.
Just like Rankin-Bass' work, eh? Rankin-Bass may have been campy but RotK was, if nothing else, pretty faithful to the original storyline (if you ignore "Bilbo's Birthday" tying the thing together)... to the point of having a lot of stuff in it that only a die-hard purist could appreciate. I watched that movie religiously for years and it was only after about 10 years of watching and several readings of Tolkien and some of the associated explanations from Tolkien that I understood more than half of the stuff in there.
Any outsider could have said, "you'll have a billion dollar franchise" - and an insider would have pointed out the pre-existing counter-examples. It's not as easy as you make it out to be.
And again, your comments show not that you're disappointed in TTT, but you're disappointed in PJ's metagaming. Again, we have the benefit of hindsight on this one - LotR is NOT by any stretch a guaranteed hit - or the previous versions would have been so.
It is amazing to me that a work with so many departures in character and tone would be hailed as a faithful work, whatever other accolades it recieves. I do not know whether to be hopeful on those grounds or fearful.
It is hailed as faithful because it is recognized that
given the constraints of the current system it was as faithful as can be expected. In this case, I think "faithful" is a relative term. Other systems (increased movie length, different paradigms in Hollywood, etc) might very well produce a better movie... but unfortunately, such systems do not exist. You are lamenting the lack of the alternate systems here - which should have no bearing on your opinion of "how well did PJ do?"
And to be honest, I found that the general tone and story arc of Jackson's movies were a little darker than the LotR I read, but on the whole, they were good without introducing SO many characters that a moviegoer is lost.
Certainly there is the possibility that between LotR and the Potter's it will now be much easier for a director to sell the notion of a faithful adaptation of other great works of 20th century literature, but I greatly fear that what this means is that we will have 20 years of quasi-adaptations and bastardizations of works and that Hollywood still won't realize or accept that if you respect the works of a good and popular writer - you will make more money than you would have otherwise. So, the day when I see good movie adaptations of books I've always wanted to see as movies is still probably a long way off.
And again, you reveal your bias. You're pissed because LotR did not redefine the system, not because it was the best it could be
given the constraints PJ had to work with. I might as well say I'm pissed that we don't theater-quality audiovisual equipment for my home. But that doesn't mean I'm pissed at the movie-maker when the DVDs I watch are on a small screen in mono-sound because I only have the TV speaker. They can't break out of the paradigm until I (the one with the money) decide to change my spending habits as it relates to my home theater (currently a TV plus a VCR and a DVD player).
In the mean time, enjoy yourself.
I did, and I hope you will, too. Let go of what you want the system to be and enjoy LotR for what it is... hopefully the seminal work in movies that proves that it's possible to remain true to a story without "spinning it" and still have good movie making. Though again, I'm darn glad PJ spun LotR away from being a musical.
Ultimately, the question should not be, "could it have been much better WITH a paradigm shift in the movie industry?" (Of course it could) but rather, "could it have been much better WITHOUT a paradigm shift in the movie industry?" (I think the answer is, "better but not much better.") You're asking the wrong question and you're not judging a movie by its merits given the resources available to it.
Citizen Kane, by today's standards, would be awful.
So would Bela Lugosi's Dracula.
So would Gone With the Wind.
So would Psycho.
So would The Wizard of Oz.
So would Star Wars.
So would It's a Wonderful Life.
So would <insert any movie here> when judged by standards of a decade or two later. Why do we hold the above movies as classics and hail their excellence today? Because we recognize that they were some of the best movies GIVEN THE CONSTRAINTS AND RESOURCES THEY HAD TO WORK WITH... and because they were works that pushed the envelope and STARTED - not completed - a paradigm shift in the movie industry. You can get away with pushing the envelope - but you can't create a new one overnight.
--The Sigil
